Yesterday's Hero
by Raziel12
Summary: Every war has heroes, and every war has casualties. The war made Lightning a hero, but it made her a casualty too. Now, she has to put herself back together, one piece at a time. A medal might look nice, but it doesn't bring peace of mind.
1. Chapter 1

**Yesterday's Hero**

"Good afternoon, doctor."

What a curious mixture of strength and vulnerability. The quiet confidence in the voice was utterly at odds with the furtive glances at the door. But as quickly as it had appeared, that vulnerability was gone, hidden behind an expression of icy calm. Aerith had seen it a thousands times before on the faces of soldiers who'd faced far too many battles, but Captain Lightning Farron's mask was still one of the best she'd seen. If Aerith didn't know better, she would have thought that the pink-haired woman was perfectly fine.

"Good afternoon, captain. Please, have a seat."

Lightning paused half a step from the door and then shut it behind her before studying the rest of the room with those famously blue eyes of hers. Those eyes took in every last detail, cataloguing the books on the shelves and the paintings on the wall. They lingered for a moment on the framed photograph sitting on the desk before settling on the two seats on opposites sides of a coffee table.

Without a word, Lightning chose the seat facing the door but only after moving it out of line with the window. The seat was designed to be comfortable, the kind of seat someone could slouch on, but Lightning remained perfectly upright, perched awkwardly on the edge of it, her posture perfect to the point of being painful. Her eyes flicked around the room again, and she folded her hands together in her lap.

Aerith took the other seat and relaxed. She spent almost as much time in her office on the base as she did at home. She'd become comfortable here, perhaps too comfortable.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, captain." Aerith straightened and reached across the table to shake Lightning's hand. It was an undeniably feminine hand, slim-wristed and with long, slender fingers, but there was no missing the strength in it – or the calluses. "Tell me, captain, do you know why you are here?"

Blue eyes narrowed faintly. "You don't like to mince words, do you, doctor?"

Aerith met Lightning's gaze evenly. "My profession requires me to be good at reading people. I get the impression that you'd prefer me to be as straightforward as possible."

"I see." Lightning smoothed a non-existent wrinkle from her uniform. Aerith studied the uniform more closely. It was absolutely immaculate. And even without looking, she had a feeling that Lightning's shoes were polished to perfection. "You're right, I suppose. I've never cared much for wasting words. I'm here, doctor, because I was ordered to come here."

What an interesting way to put it. It was true, of course. Aerith had been ordered by General Amodar to see to the health of the military's most famous captain, but she knew the general. He was a good man. He wouldn't have ordered counselling without a very, very good reason.

"And why were you ordered to come here, captain?" Aerith reached forward and picked up her mug of coffee. It was warm, just shy of being hot. The smell of it filled the room. "Do you mind if I call you, Lightning?"

"By all means."

"Then, please, call me Aerith."

"I prefer to stick with 'doctor'."

Aerith watched Lightning watch her. The other woman smoothed another imaginary wrinkle for her uniform before realising what she was doing and folding her hands together in her lap again. She'd have to pay closer attention to that. Lightning's face and posture gave nothing away, but her hands told a different story.

"Would you like some coffee while you tell me why you were ordered to come here?" Aerith asked.

Lightning almost flinched, but she caught herself before the gesture could reach fruition. It was startling how aware of herself she seemed to be. "Some coffee would be good."

Aerith readied another mug of coffee and went back to watching Lightning. The other woman lifted the mug of coffee up and stared deeply into it. Her fingers tightened around the mug, still for a moment, before one finger began to tap a steady rhythm against the side of the mug.

"I haven't been sleeping," Lightning began. "And it's begun to affect my performance. I lost my temper with the new recruits."

"I see." Aerith caught and held Lightning's gaze. The other woman looked as if she wanted to turn away, but her pride wouldn't let her. "And why can't you sleep Lightning?"

"I…" Lightning looked into her coffee. Her expression lost some of its icy calm. "I've been having dreams."

"About the war?" Aerith had expected as much. They'd draped Lightning in medals and given her a job training the new recruits. But no one had ever bothered to check if Cocoon's war hero had ever managed to pull herself back together after what she'd gone through during the war. Aerith knew all too well that even legends could bleed.

"Yes." Lightning got up and walked over to the window. Aerith let her go. There were new recruits running laps around the base. They couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen years old – scarcely more than children, really. Lightning was twenty-five, but she might as well have been six hundred and twenty-five, considering everything she'd seen in the war. "Did you serve during the war, doctor?"

Aerith could make out the tense interplay of muscles in Lightning's back. "Yes. I was a field medic assigned to one of the SOLDIER divisions."

"And you saw combat?" Lightning murmured. She set her mug of coffee on the windowsill.

"I did." Aerith stood and walked over to look out the same window as Lightning. Did the captain prefer to talk this way, with neither of them looking at each other? "I actually have a medal, you know." Her lips twitched. "I got it for pulling General Sephiroth out of harm's way when he was wounded. He's a stubborn man, the general. I got the feeling he'd have been happier bleeding to death than retreating so that I could see to his injuries."

"I know the type." Lightning pursed her lips. "How did you end up becoming a counsellor?"

"I would rather be putting people back together than blowing them apart." Aerith shrugged. "What do you see in your dreams, Lightning? What keeps you awake at night?"

For a long time, Lightning said nothing. Instead, her gaze was fixed on the recruits running outside.

"I was eighteen when I joined." Lightning's fists clenched. "The army was the only place that would take someone like me. But I never thought I'd see combat. I thought I'd serve my two years and find a job in the police force or something similar. Then the war happened. I was a private when the war started, Aerith. By the end of the first week I was a corporal. It was a field promotion – all of my seniors were dead."

"But you kept going."

"I didn't have a choice. I don't know how many people I killed that first week." Lightning shook her head. "But I remember the first one. I remember the mud. Our transport was shot down over this big field of mud. Gran Pulse was supposed to be this big, beautiful wilderness, but this place… it was just mud. If I had to guess, I'd say artillery was responsible for that, but I didn't know that at the time." Her voice hardened. "The three people in front of me all got shot trying to get through the door. I don't know why I wasn't. When I got out, I ran. I ran as fast as I could." She took a deep breath. "I only stopped running when I ran into one of them – the enemy, I mean. He looked just as scared as I was. My rifle jammed, so I hit him with it, and I just kept on hitting him with it until he stopped moving. Then I took his rifle." Lightning made a disgusted sound. "They were just another dumb kid. I wasn't better than them. I was lucky, that's all."

"Is that what you see in your dreams?"

"Sometimes. But it's always something from the war."

"How long have you been having these dreams?"

Lightning took a sip of her coffee. She barely seemed to taste it. "I never stopped having them."

"Then what's changed? Why do they bother you more now?"

"I don't know." Lightning sighed. "I think it might be the new recruits. This batch… they don't seem to understand what the war was like. They think it was a game. They think being a soldier is great because of all the medals I won." For a moment, she looked so weary that Aerith almost reached out to steady her. Then she straightened, every inch the perfect soldier again. "I fought because I had to and because our country needed me to. But those kids don't understand that. They see a bunch of medals pinned onto my chest, but they don't see all the kids – and most of them were kids, damn it – that I had to kill to get them. It could just easily have been me who died on that muddy field."

"You do realise that the people you fought were soldiers like you. If they were kids, then you were a kid too."

"I know that." Lightning's hands tightened around her mug. "But that doesn't make me feel any better. I even understand why so many fresh recruits were out there. They needed every soldier they could find – every single soldier."

Aerith gave Lightning a moment to compose herself. "Do you have flashbacks?"

"Sometimes." Lightning ambled back to her seat. "Most of the time, I'm back in that field, a stolen rifle in my hand, and blood all over me." She chuckled mirthlessly. "I could use some help, couldn't I, doctor?"

"I think so." Aerith returned to her seat. "But that's why you're here."

"Do you record these sessions, doctor?"

"I intend to. In fact, I was going to broach that matter earlier." Aerith paused. "I hadn't expected you to be so forthcoming."

Lightning sagged. "I have a problem. I need to get it fixed. If I can't fix it, then I'm of no use here. I have nowhere else to go."

"Then we'll fix things." Aerith leaned back in her seat. "Would you mind if I started recording now? All of the recordings are encrypted and password protected. Any written notes I make will be stored securely."

"All right." Lightning folded her hands in her lap again. Aerith frowned. She hadn't noticed it before, but there was something odd about them.

"How often do you wash your hands?" Aerith asked. "Lightning, how many times a day do you wash your hands?"

Lightning's smile was grim. "Too many, but never enough."

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I do not own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

Well, I'm back in serious territory again. I've always found it fascinating that the heroes in fiction so often emerge from their ordeals without any lasting psychological damage. I thought it would be interesting to write something in which that wasn't the case. The Lightning in this story has emerged from the war a hero, but she hasn't gotten through the war unscathed. It's up to Aerith to help put her back together again. She'll have help, of course, since some of the other characters from FF XIII will be making their appearance soon.

I also write original fiction, mostly fantasy. You can find links to it in my profile. If you're looking for something fun to read, try _Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf_, or, if you want something more serious, try _The Last Huntress._

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

**Flash Fire**

Lightning unlocked the front door of the house she shared with Serah and stepped inside. The rest of her session with Aerith had been draining, to say the least. The other woman had a way of putting people at ease, but Lightning still couldn't bring herself to say too much. She had so many bad memories, and she'd tried so hard to bury them.

"Serah, I'm home." She took off her jacket and hung it on the coat rack by the door before undoing the top button of her shirt and rolling up her sleeves. "Serah?"

"I'm in the kitchen, Lightning." Serah's voice drifted through the house. "You're just in time, actually. I was about to start the steak for tonight. How would you like yours?"

A small smile played across Lightning's lips, the first in what felt like forever. This was the reason she'd fought so hard – if she'd failed then people like Serah would have had to fight. Her little sister was a primary school teacher, and she'd never been anywhere near a battlefield. Lightning would do everything she could to make sure that stayed the case and that her students never saw a battlefield either.

"Well done would be nice." Lightning considered going to her room and changing and then shoved the idea aside. After the day she'd had, she needed to see Serah. Just a glimpse of her sister's smile was enough to make everything okay. "How was your day? Did the kids give you any trouble?"

Serah was milling about the kitchen in an apron, her hair slightly frazzled and her eyes darting from one thing to another. Some vegetables had already been chopped, and Lightning moved in to start stir-frying them as Serah turned the rest of her attention to the steaks.

"It was okay. You know how kids can be."

Lightning shook her head. "No, I really don't."

"Well, kids can be great one day and crazy the next." Serah laughed. She'd tied her hair back, but as usual, it was in danger of slipping loose. Lightning reached over to fix it, ignoring the bemused glance Serah gave her. Serah seemed to believe that she was a little overprotective. "I had to wrangle them all day. I swear their parents must have slipped some extra sugar into their breakfast or something because they were bouncing off the walls." She grinned. "But they're good kids, all things considered. We were talking about animals today, and the only ones anyone wanted to talk about were lions and sharks."

"Lions and sharks are quite impressive," Lightning replied. "They have a certain… appeal."

"You mean they're big and scary?"

"Yes. It would explain why kids like dinosaurs so much too." Lightning took a deep breath and then flinched as Serah put one of the steaks on the grill and started to cook it. The smell of it cooking made her uneasy although she couldn't quite say why. There was something about the sound of it too, the crackle and sizzle of cooking meat.

She shook her head. She must still be on edge after her session with Aerith. That was all. But the feeling of unease wouldn't leave. Her jaw tightened, and she forced herself to focus only on the vegetables. She was home. Everything was fine.

"Lightning, are you okay?" Serah turned away from the steaks. "You look really pale."

"I'm fine." Lightning jerked back as a loud sizzle came from the steaks. "I'm –"

X X X

Lightning pressed herself flat against the wall of the trench and stared at the muddy, bloodied face of the soldier beside her.

"Sergeant." He grabbed her arm and shook her. She was losing it again. They all were. "We've got to fall back."

Lightning flinched as another explosion rocked the area. She'd lost count of how long the Gran Pulse artillery had been pounding away at their position. It felt like it had been days of non-stop bombardment, but being constantly on edge had a way of messing with people's perception of time.

Without air support, all they could do was huddle in their trenches and try to hold on. There had been a field around them once. Now, it was a sea of mud and blood, the result of days of rain and artillery. Even now, water lapped at her shins, the mud in the trench making it hard just to move.

"We can't fall back." Lightning laughed, and there was a tinge of madness to it. "Where do you think we'd go?"

She was right, and he knew it. They were the last real hold out on what was supposed to have been a wedge of infantry and armour driven deep into Gran Pulse territory. But the enemy had stifled their advance and crushed their flanks. Even if they were somehow able to retreat, they'd find themselves hounded every step of the way.

"But, sergeant –"

"Get the lieutenant." Lightning shoved away from the wall. She needed to clear her head. A shell exploded nearby and clumps of mud rained down into the trench. "He'll know what to do."

"The lieutenant is dead, ma'am." The soldier thrust a helmet at her. It was the lieutenant's, and it was riddled with shrapnel. "A shell came down right on his position. I found that on my way here."

"There's got to be someone else –"

"There isn't, ma'am." He was so young, she realised, even younger than her. He must have lied about his age so that he could serve. He wouldn't have been the first. She'd met others, kids, really, who'd joined up thinking that the war would be quick and clean. They were all learning that there was nothing quick about the fighting down here, nothing clean. "You're in command now."

Lightning sagged back against the wall. Her hands tightened on her battered rifle. She needed to think. She had to think. If she really was in charge, there were several platoons under her command now – as many as two hundred soldiers looking to her for direction. But what did she know? This war was the first time she'd ever seen combat. She didn't know anything about taking command. Hell, the only reason she was a sergeant was because everyone else was dead and the lieutenant had needed someone to lead a squad.

She forced herself to breath. If she panicked now, she wouldn't be the only person ending up dead. She closed her eyes. The enemy trenches were only a few hundred yards off, but the mud would make crossing the gap extremely difficult. But the enemy had numbers on their side – the lieutenant had mentioned that there could be thousands of Gran Pulse soldiers waiting to launch an attack on their position.

If they couldn't retreat, then they had to hold. With the weapons and ammunition they had left, it would be almost impossible. There were too few of them to stop an advance on all fronts. They needed to find out where the enemy would be coming from and be prepared to meet them. She counted to ten and then opened her eyes.

"We have to hold. Central Command has to realise that we're still fighting. We need to get communications back. I don't know why we lost them, but if we can get in touch with command, we can call for some support. I haven't seen any Gran Pulse air power here either, so there must be something big going on." She dug through her pockets for her badly worn map of the area. "I want lookouts here, here, and here. We don't have the manpower to defend all the trenches. We need to know where they're coming from."

"Yes, ma'am." He nodded and began the dangerous trek back toward the other trenches. "I'll let the others know."

The attack came the next morning. A fresh barrage of artillery had all of them huddling in the trenches before a roar came from the other side of the field. She peeked over the side of the trench. There were hundreds of them coming, maybe thousands.

"Ma'am?"

Lightning swallowed thickly and then bit her lip until it bled. The pain was invigorating. It let her focus through the fear that was already turning her muscles to jelly. "Hold your fire. Hold your fire until they get closer. We can't afford to waste ammunition." She turned and yelled at one of the few machine gun emplacements they still had, "Wait as long as you can."

Time passed in a blur. And then the machine gun came alive, spewing bullets into the mass of oncoming Gran Pulse soldiers. Lightning heard screams, and the soldier behind her began to mutter a prayer. She didn't know if it would help, but she muttered one too. It couldn't hurt. Then she looked over the side of the trench.

They were close enough.

"Fire!" Lightning roared, lifting her rifle. "Fire!"

Lightning forced herself to think of the people she was shooting as the enemy and nothing more. It couldn't matter that they were probably little more than kids, just idiots like her who'd signed up because there was no one else who would take them. If she started thinking like that, she'd go crazy.

They held the first wave off and then the machine gun emplacement was gone. Smoke rose from the ruins of it, and she caught a glimpse of the men inside. One of them had been ripped almost in half, and his torso hung uselessly over the trench. It must have been an RPG hit. Without the machine gun, the next wave reached the trench.

It was bitter fighting then. Lightning could barely move in the mud, and she didn't have the strength or energy for anything remotely resembling finesse. Instead she hit people with the butt and stock of her rifle, and when that was wrenched out of her hands, she drew her knife and stabbed them. Blood mingled with the mud splattered on her face and hands.

A blow clipped the side of her head, and she stumbled, falling to her hands and knees in the mud. She saw her opponent lift her rifle and take aim, and Lightning drove up to her feet in desperation, tackling the other woman to the ground. The rifle tumbled out of the other woman's hands, and Lightning punched her in the face. Her knuckles burned. Had she broken her hand? But she barely felt the pain, shoving the other woman's head under the muddy water that filled the bottom of the trench with one hand and tightening her other hand around her throat.

She was still shouting when one of her men pulled her off the corpse.

"Ma'am, there's another wave coming. We need to fall back."

Lightning staggered to her feet. There was skin under her fingernails. "What about communications? Do we have communications back yet?" Her ears rang. Had the Gran Pulse artillery started firing again? No, that couldn't be right. The ground wasn't shaking.

"I still can't call out, ma'am," one of the other soldiers said. He was on the radio. "But I am getting something." His face paled beneath the layer of mud and blood that clung to him. "Ma'am… they're going to glass the area."

"What?" Glassing an area meant bombing it with incendiary weaponry – burning and melting everything. "But we're still here! We're still fighting!"

He shook his head. "They must think we're all dead ma'am. They must think we can't hold this position anymore, and with all those Gran Pulse soldiers out in the open…"

"It'll be a killing field." Lightning dragged in a deep breath. "If that's true, then we need to get out of here. We can fall back to the hill. I was planning on making our last stand there, if it came to it, but we haven't got a choice now –"

And that was when Lightning heard it. It was a sound that chilled her to the bone and cut through the roar of artillery fire. It was the whistle of a bomb dropped from high altitude rushing toward the ground. It hit a few hundred yards away, and a pillar of fire erupted, expanding into a cloud of heat and thunder that rippled over the battlefield. It was only the first of what would be many more.

"Run!" Lightning screamed. "Run!"

She ran, along with all the men she had left. Not even a trench would save them from that kind of firepower. The hill – and the makeshift bunker they'd built into it – was their best hope. She was halfway there when the radioman went down, hit by wild shots from one of the Gran Pulse soldiers running after them.

"Get up!" She grabbed his arm. "You've got to run!"

"My leg –" The shots had gone through his left leg at the knee.

She didn't waste another second. She threw one of his arms over her shoulders and half-dragged, half-carried him toward the hill. She lost her footing on an old helmet buried in the muddy water of the trench and staggered. He ended up on her back, and she hauled them toward the hill. She was almost there when the world went white – a wave of radiance and fire washing over her.

For the longest time, she lay there unable to see, or hear, or even think. Her eyes burned. When she was finally able to move, the first thing she became aware of was the smell. It was like meat cooking on a grill. And then there was the sound, the crackle and hiss of something burning. She tried to get up, but there was someone on top of her. She tried to move them, but the strength had gone out of her. Their weight bore down on her, pushing her into the water, drowning her.

"Sergeant!"

Someone yanked the weight off her and pulled her to her feet. She found herself looking at one of the biggest men she'd ever seen. It was one of her men. Snow, yes, his name was Snow.

"What happened?" Lightning leaned against the wall. She might have fallen if he hadn't propped her up with one arm. "I was… I was with someone…"

"He's gone, ma'am." Snow looked at a body slumped in the trench nearby.

"Gone?" Lightning shook her head. "He was with me. I was carrying him…" She blinked, tried to make sense of what she was seeing. That body was the radioman. He'd been the weight that was holding her down. "But…"

She gagged. The radioman's entire back was a charred, burnt out mess. It was like a well-done steak. He must have taken the brunt of the explosion – the smells and sounds she'd noticed were the smells and sounds of his flesh burning. She covered her mouth with one hand. There were more bodies in the trench, all of them burnt. And the battlefield… Maker, there were no words for what she saw when she looked over the side of the trench.

"Ma'am?" Snow asked. "Ma'am –"

X X X

"Lightning –"

Lightning felt hands on her shoulders and reacted without thinking. In the blink of an eye, she had her attacked pinned to the ground, one forearm braced against their throat as she raised her other hand to strike. It was only then that the haze cleared. It was Serah. She jerked away, stumbling back on her haunches until she hit the wall of the kitchen. She stared at the bruise that was already forming on Serah's neck. Bile burned the back of her throat.

"Serah –" Lightning reached out and then dropped her hand, her fingers scrabbling on the floor uselessly. "I'm so sorry."

Serah winced and rubbed her neck. "It's okay. Lightning, I'm okay." She crawled toward Lightning, but the soldier waved her away.

"Don't come any closer!"

"It's okay." Serah whispered, moving closer little by little until she could hold Lightning in her arms. "What happened? You were… you were somewhere else."

In slow, halting words, Lightning told her. She told her about the trenches, and the mud, and the fire. When she was done, Serah held her tighter.

"It's going to be okay." Serah stroked Lightning's hair. "We don't have to have steak tonight. How about I order pizza?"

Lightning laughed until tears began to roll down her cheeks. "Pizza? Okay."

X X X

Serah stroked Lightning's hair. The other woman had fallen asleep on the couch with her head in Serah's lap. She knew why Lightning didn't like talking about everything that had happened during the war. She was worried about burdening Serah with all of that horror. But if Serah could make things even a little bit easier for her sister, then she would gladly carry that burden.

The truth was – and Lightning still didn't know this – she'd been the one to go to Amodar. She'd known for some time that Lightning had been having trouble sleeping, but Lightning had refused to acknowledge her concerns. But Amodar was a good man. Serah had met him several times now, and Lightning spoke of him in glowing terms. She also knew that he cared about Lightning, had taken her under his wing at some point during the war, so she'd gone to him with her worries.

He'd agreed to make sure that Lightning got help. She'd also asked him about the nightmares.

"Do they ever go away?" Serah had asked.

His eyes had been so old when he replied, and his big frame had sagged. "They get less frequent and less vivid, but they don't ever go away. At least, mine haven't."

X X X

**Author's Notes**

As always, I do not own Final Fantasy, nor am I making any money off of this.

So, here we are again. In this chapter, I wanted to have a bit of normalcy for Lightning before delving back into what she experienced during the war. After her session with Aerith, I don't think it's too surprising that she might have some flashbacks. The memories would be much closer to the surface. The flashback itself is set at some point relatively early in the war but after the experience she describes in the first chapter. Rather than simply presenting all of her memories in chronological order, I'll probably have some level of disjointedness present because she isn't thinking through them clearly. Instead, her memories are kind of sneaking up on her. Also, Snow makes his appearance!

I also write original fiction, mostly fantasy. You can find links to it in my profile. If you're looking for something fun to read, try _Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf_. If you've enjoyed any of my humorous stories, you'll absolutely love that one. If you want something more serious, try _The Last Huntress._

As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.


End file.
